1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wireless apparatus, and more particularly to a wireless apparatus with a function to convert the data format of a received data.
2. Description of the Related Art
A wireless apparatus receives a desired data and displays the received data on a display section. At this time, when the received data is merely displayed without application of any processing, a sequence of characters or numerals of the received data is merely displayed, as shown in FIG. 1. Accordingly, it is difficult to recognize, for example, the temporal change of the desired data. Especially, in a portable information receiver such as a pager, because a memory capacity is limited, a system is generally adopted in which only the latest information is stored. For this reason, it is not possible to display the data previously received once again. Thus, in a portable information receiver, it is difficult to recognize the temporal change of the data further than in the above-mentioned wireless apparatus.
An information display apparatus is disclosed in Japanese Laid Open Patent Disclosure (JP-A-Heisei 8-55153), in which the temporal change of a data can be easily recognized. In this information display apparatus, received stock market data are classified and rearranged for every category of business and displayed in a graph form, to allow stock market data to be visually recognized.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating the structure of the information display apparatus mentioned above. Referring to FIG. 2, the information display apparatus is composed of a CPU 111, a receiving unit 112, a data storage area 113, an input unit 114, a main memory having a program area and a work area, an external storage unit 116, and a display unit. The receiving unit 112 receives a stock market data which is sent through a communication channel, and the CPU 111 stores the received stock market data in the data storage unit 113. A company name is designated through the input unit 114. The CPU 111 classifies the stock market data which has been stored in the data storage unit 113 in accordance with the designated company name and rearranges them in order. Then, the CPU 111 displays the stock market data for the designated company name on the display unit 117. Also, the CPU 111 displays the quantities of sold and bought stocks for the designated company name with different colors in the form of graph on the display unit 117.
However, in the above information display apparatus, since the received data is used for a data base, the received data is stored just as it is received without application of any processing. In addition, the data converted into the form of graph is also stored. For this reason, there is a problem in that the quantity of data to be stored increases. In accordance with, the sufficiently large memory capacity must be provided previously in the information display apparatus. This is a fatal problem, especially, in the portable information receiver such as a pager in which the memory capacity to be mounted is limited.
The present invention is accomplished in view of the above problems. Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a wireless apparatus, in which a received data is converted to have a data format and stored in a memory so that a data quantity can be reduced.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a wireless apparatus in which the temporal change of a sequence of received data can be displayed and easily recognized.
In order to achieve an aspect of the present invention, a wireless apparatus includes a receiving unit for receiving a wireless signal, for extracting a call number and a reception data subsequent to the call number from the received signal, and for generating a determination signal indicative of whether a message reception mode or an information reception mode is set for the call number, a display unit, a data converting unit for performing a data conversion to the reception data based on a data conversion format for the call number to produce a new data when the determination signal indicates the information reception mode, and a control unit for displaying the new data on the display unit.
The wireless apparatus may further include a storage unit, and the data converting unit stores the new data in the storage unit. Alternatively, the wireless apparatus may further includes a storage unit in which an old data which is already subjected to the data conversion and stored therein. In this case, the data converting unit reads the old data from the storage unit, integrates the old data and the new data to produce an integration data, and stores the integration data in the storage unit. Also, the control unit displays the integration data on the display unit instead of the new data.
The integration data is desirably displayed in a graph form.
The control unit previously designates the data conversion format for the call number in response to an instruction from a user. More particularly, the data converting unit stores a plurality of data conversion formats, and the control unit previously selects one of the plurality of data conversion formats for the call number in response to the instruction from the user.
In order to achieve another aspect of the present invention, a method of displaying a temporal change of a received data in a wireless apparatus, comprising the steps of:
receiving a wireless signal;
extracting a call number and a reception data subsequent to the call number from the received signal;
generating a determination signal indicative of whether a message reception mode or an information reception mode is set for the call number;
performing a data conversion to the reception data based on a data conversion format for the call number to produce a new data when the determination signal indicates the information reception mode; and
displaying the new data on the display unit.
In order to achieve still another aspect of the present invention, a wireless apparatus includes a receiving section for receiving a wireless signal, and for extracting a call number and a reception data subsequent to the call number from the received signal, a determining section for determining whether a message reception mode or an information reception mode is set for the call number, to generate a determination signal, a converting section for performing a data conversion to the reception data based on a data conversion format for the call number to produce a new data when the determination signal indicates the information reception mode, and a display section for displaying the new data on the display unit.